Set the Fire to the Third Bar
by Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbs
Summary: My take on Mackenzie's stabbing in Islamabad, as Jim told us in the pilot episode. Switches between The Middle East and Stateside; one-shot. Will/Mackenzie, in a sense. Pre-series.


A/N: Okay, so this is my idea about Mackenzie's stabbing during the Shiite protest in Islamabad that Jim mentions in the pilot. This is my idea as to what she was doing over there in terms of her job, and the reactions of her stabbing Stateside. Will never mentions if he knew or not, but I can see both sides (him knowing/not knowing).

Disclaimer: I only own Derek, my manly hunk of a cameraman (or at least he's a hunk in my head).

"_I touch the place where I'd find your face, my fingers in creases of distant dark places," –'Set the Fire to the Third Bar', Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright_

* * *

Mackenzie McHale had been in dangerous situations before; covering the Middle East post-9/11 was never going to be the safest career move. She'd been here for almost two and a half years now, and while she still stood out with her pale skin and British accent and womanly curves, she could handle the heat and the people and her job.

But something about this protest was different.

She stood on the outskirts, Derek (her cameraman) pointing his lens at her, the protest in the background. She was dressed in neutral browns and tans, the microphone in her hand and her back to most of the action.

She was saying something about the Shiites that were holding the protest when Derek's face paled, and she frowned, wondering what was wrong. Then Jim's voice was in her ear and she panicked and tried to move, but then there was a searing pain in her abdomen and she couldn't breathe.

The pain was excruciating; Derek's face was floating above her but she couldn't answer his questions- everything hurt, and when she brought a shaky hand up to her face, her fingers were covered in bright red blood. A choked sob left her throat as she tried to calm down, and her mind focused on only one thing.

_Will._

"Tell…"she started to say, but she coughed, and she could taste the metallic tang of blood on her tongue and in her throat. "Tell…Will…"

She blacked out before she could finish her statement.

* * *

Jim Harper stood in the Islamabad hospital, shoulders tense as he waited for any news on Mackenzie. Everyone had seen her stabbed on camera; when Derek had brought her to the hospital and met them, she'd been so small and pale and lifeless.

She'd been taken into surgery immediately; they'd come out to say they were doing a blood transfusion, and that had been almost two hours ago.

Derek came up to stand beside him, Mackenzie's blood staining the bottom of his torn, brown shirt. He'd carried her through the fray and gotten her back to the van to bring her to the hospital; Jim had never been more glad that their cameraman was strong enough to lift Mack.

"D'you know a Will?" Derek asked, his voice gruff. Jim looked at him, thinking, and suddenly the night Mackenzie had gotten completely drunk crashed into his mind.

"Yeah- why?" he asked, a feeling of dread filling his stomach. Derek scratched the back of his neck, shifting his stance.

"When she- she first got stabbed, before she blacked out- she said 'Tell Will'," Derek revealed, shrugging his shoulders. "Figured it was just rambling but thought maybe you'd know."

"Mack…dated a Will, for a while," Jim said, running his hand through his hair. "I'll see if I can find a contact number."

But Jim knew he couldn't call this Will guy up and tell him the news of Mackenzie's stabbing; from what he'd gathered through her drunken stories, they'd parted on bad terms, and that's why she was here, instead of married and happy in New York.

He did some digging on his laptop while he waited, finding Will McAvoy at Newsnight in the city. His boss was a Charlie Skinner, so he figured if he sent him an email telling him what had happened, Will would be informed through him.

The email was short and to the point, and he didn't expect a response. The call to Mackenzie's parents, however, was anything but short (or easy, for that matter), and by the time he hung up, they were already scheduling a flight to be with their daughter.

He looked up when the doctor came out, relief washing over him when he was informed that the surgery looked like it had been successful. The knife had ruptured her spleen; they'd removed it, and stitched the skin back together. There was going to be quite a scar, apparently, but Jim didn't think Mackenzie was going to care.

"She's currently in a coma, but that can only be expected after such trama," the doctor said, and Jim nodded, running his hand over his jaw. "Is there a husband we should be informing?"

"Her parents are on their way," Jim said, shifting uncomfortably. "We're all she's got at the moment."

He motioned towards the people littering the waiting room; Derek was asleep in a chair, Lucinda (their producer) was propped up with a book, and Elsa was praying with her rosary in a corner, lips moving in silent prayer.

The doctor nodded, adjusting his glasses.

"I'll let you know if anything changes," he said, and Jim nodded. He turned and left the room, and Jim sunk back down into his chair and rested his head in his hands.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

Charlie's office was darker and quieter than usual; it was past midnight on a Friday, and everyone except two had gone home.

A bottle of bourbon sat on the conference table, half-empty, with two glasses beside it. The chairs by the windows were both occupied, the occupants smoking their cigar and cigarettes collectively.

"She asked for you, Will," Charlie Skinner said, swirling the liquor around his glass and throwing it back. "She was bleeding and she said your name."

Will McAvoy's hand clenched around his glass, and his throat moved as he swallowed hard.

"I know, Charlie," Will said, voice low in the darkness. He'd read the email; he'd imagined the scene in his head.

Mackenzie was lying in a hospital in Islamabad, hurting. That's where she'd escaped to after he'd left her. Of all the fucking places in the world, she'd chosen a country in the midst of religious uprising.

It was so her it made his chest ache.

"She's okay, at least," Charlie said, taking another swig of alcohol. Will nodded as he took another puff of his cigarette; the nicotine rushed through his veins.

"Yeah," he said, because he couldn't say anymore.

He couldn't talk about how much he missed her. He couldn't talk about how much he thought about her. He couldn't talk about how much he was worried about her.

And he certainly couldn't talk about how much he still loved her with every fiber of his being.

So they sat in silence and drank to the fact that she was still alive.

* * *

Two weeks after her stabbing, Mackenzie was awake and aching.

She couldn't move without the stitches pulling, and every breath hurt. She wasn't complaining, but the pain was overwhelming; the morphine was the only thing that helped most of the time.

She was looking through her email when a nurse walked in, a large bouquet of flowers in her hands. She set them on Mackenzie's side table, arranging them delicately.

"These arrived for you this morning," she informed her patient, and Mackenzie tilted her head in question. Her parents were already here; who on earth would have sent her flowers.

"Did they come with a card?" she asked, shifting herself as gingerly as she could.

"No, they were blank," the nurse said, and Mackenzie frowned. The nurse left and she sighed, looking at her computer screen again, to the open email she'd started.

"_Dear Will…"_

* * *

Will was tired, but then again, he'd been tired for almost two and a half years now.

He thought about food but it was too much effort; he grabbed a beer and turned on a baseball game that was on tv- he watched half-heartedly before turning to his computer.

He clicked through his email, the hum of his apartment the only sound. The dozens of unopened messages started at him, all from the same sender: mmchale .

He found the very first email from Mackenzie from so many months ago; unopened, unread, but not deleted. The subject line simply read 'Will', and he hovered over it, the arrow equidistant from both the trash can and the open button.

He clicked.


End file.
